Memorial Day brought us a slightly abbreviated 14-game slate of big league action, including a doubleheader in Cincinnati. Gerrit Cole racked up 12 more strikeouts against the hard-hitting Cubs, Oakland sort of went for its 10th straight win, and the Brewers-Twins showdown saw a late-inning comeback. That, of course, is just a taste of what you'll find below

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Baseball scores for Monday, May 27

Nats lose another Scherzer start

Another great Max Scherzer start, another loss for the Nationals. It doesn't make sense, I know, but such is life with the 2019 Nationals. Scherzer struck out six Marlins in six innings of one-run ball Monday afternoon. He even drove in a run.

It was an all-around great day for the three-time Cy Young winner until the bullpen got involved. Right-hander Tanner Rainey allowed a manufactured run (walk, bunt, fly out, sac fly) to tie the game in the seventh, then Trea Turner made a crucial error in the eighth that helped Miami take the lead against Kyle Barraclough. 

Washington's last best chance came in the bottom of the eighth, when wunderkind Juan Soto lined out to left field with the bases loaded to end the inning. Despite his 3.26 ERA, the Nationals are an unbelievable 2-10 in Scherzer's 12 starts. In fact, they are a combined 7-16 in Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg starts this year. Yikes.

Crew comes back on Twins thanks to Arcia's clutch blast

The Brewers and Twins got together at Target Field on Monday night for a battle for the hearts and minds of the upper Midwest and a potential World Series preview. The Twins barged to an early 4-0 lead in the second, but the Brewers added three in the third. It remained a one-run contest when Milwaukee shortstop Orlando Arcia stepped to the plate in the eighth with a runner on second and no outs. Here's what happened: 

That blast gave the Brewers the lead, and Josh Hader made it stand up with a two-inning save. That Milwaukee win in tandem with the Cubs' loss to the Astros (another potential World Series preview) means the Brewers are now just half a game back in the NL Central. 

Even better news for the Brewers is that Jeremy Jeffress avoided disaster (and made the out) on this play: 

As for Arcia, he's a slick-fielding shortstop who coming into this season hadn't done much with the bat. His power surge in the 2018 postseason plus his strong minor-league track record raised hopes that he was ready to break out in 2019. That home run you saw above was Arcia's sixth of the season, and he's now slashing .260/.327/.409. That's not a huge breakout, to be sure, but it's solid production in light of Arcia's value with the glove. 

Bellinger does it all

Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger was until recently batting north of .400, and that's in addition to his drawing walks and hitting homers on the reg. Bellinger's also grading out as a defensive asset in the early going. In the Monday win over the Mets (a Jacob deGrom-Clayton Kershaw showdown that was promptly overshadowed by Bellinger), he gave us a little of everything. 

First came this use of the python: 

Then came Bellinger's 19th home run of the season: 

Then came his second use of the python -- one that snuffed out a potential late-inning comeback by the Mets: 

Mercy. Bellinger became the first Dodger to homer and record two outfield assists in the same game since Gary Sheffield in 1998. Bellinger came into the night leading all of MLB in WAR (and doing so by a wide margin). Suffice it to say, his Memorial Day efforts have padded that lead. 

Cole is chasing strikeout history 

Here's the final line of the Astros' Gerrit Cole from his Memorial Day start against the hard-hitting Cubs: 

player headshot
Gerrit Cole
NYY • SP • #45
vs. CHC, 5/27/19
IP6
H3
R2
SO12
BB1
View Profile

That's in essence Cole's 2019 writ small. He gave up some runs (he's now got a 4.02 ERA for the season), but he was otherwise dominant (his 112 strikeouts lead the majors by a somewhat comfortable margin). As it turns out, today's topic at this seminar at the Ramada by the airport is Cole and his strikeouts. 

On Monday, he struck out 12 of the 22 batters he faced. Color-television footage forthcoming: 

That bumps his 2019 K% -- i.e., strikeouts as a percentage of batters faced, which is a much more illuminating measure than the traditional K/9 -- to 39.0 percent for the season. That leads all qualifiers, and that's versus a league-average mark of 22.2 percent for starters. But wait: There's more!

Here, via the lovely and talented FanGraphs, are the all-time single-season leaders in K% (qualifiers only): 

Rank

Pitcher, team, year

K%

1.

Pedro Martinez, Red Sox, 1999

37.5

2.

Randy Johnson, Diamondbacks, 2001

37.4

3.

Chris Sale, Red Sox, 2017

36.2

4.

Justin Verlander, Astros, 2018

34.8

5.

Pedro Martinez, Red Sox, 2000

34.8


As you can see, if trends hold then Cole will wind up atop this list with room to spare. We're roughly a third of the way through the season, so there's of course plenty of time for Cole to fall off the pace. However, this isn't really out of character for him. Last season, for instance, Cole authored a K% of 34.5 in 200 1/3 innings, which is good for 10th on that all-time K% list. 

Cole has elite velocity, command of four to five pitches, and since arriving in Houston prior to the 2017 season he's boasted elite spin rate on his fastball and curve. All that plus the current high-strikeout era means that Cole has a real shot at setting the all-time record, in addition to topping 300 strikeouts for the first time in his career. 

A's sort of win 10th in a row

Matt Chapman homered for the third straight game as the Athletics topped the Angels in Oakland on Monday. Chapman on the season is now batting .271/.356/.552 with 14 home runs and once again provided stellar fielding at third. His A's, meantime, have now won 10 in a row. Sort of. 

After Oakland's current win streak was just three games old, they had a game against the Tigers suspended. Then they proceeded to win another seven in row, including Monday's triumph. That's 10 wins in a row. As for that suspended contest, the A's are up 5-3 in the middle of the seventh with host Detroit coming to bat. Per basic win expectancy, the A's have a 78.8 percent chance of hanging on to win that game. Thus, there's a 78.8 percent chance that this 10-game win streak retroactively becomes an 11-game win streak. At the same time, there's a 21.2 percent chance that this gets whittled back to a seven-game win streak. We'll find out on Sept. 6 when that game against the Tigers will be completed. 

Whatever the case, coming into Monday's slate the SportsLine Projection Model (@SportsLine on Twitter) gave the A's roughly a 1-in-4 chance of making the playoffs. That figures to be not so bad when you consider the A's share a division with the Astros and were six games below .500 as recently as May 14. As well, those odds will be a bit more in their favor once Monday's win becomes part of the calculus. Let's not forget that Bob Melvin's squad won 97 games a season ago. 

Highlight of the Day: Kiermaier robs Tellez

Rays ballhawk Kevin Kiermaier is a regular in our Highlight of the Day section. On Monday afternoon, Kiermaier took extra bases away from Blue Jays masher Rowdy Tellez with a leaping catch at the wall. Check it out:

That definitely was not going over the wall for a home run, but if Kiermaier doesn't make that catch, the ball bangs off the wall in who knows what direction. Tellez might have been able to chug all the way home. For what it's worth, Statcast says that fly ball had a hit probability of 72.0 percent.

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